


stale coffee

by d8night



Category: All the Wrong Questions - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 05:15:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d8night/pseuds/d8night
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ellington reflects over her meeting with Lemony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stale coffee

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write this since Who Could That Be At This Hour? came out, and the idea had just been floating around in my head until I was finally able to get it out. It rambles a bit, and I apologize for that.

Ellington sat in the Officers Mitchum’s station wagon, running her thumb over the frayed edges of her skirt. The officers had just dropped Lemony Snicket off at The Lost Arms and were now on their way to bringing Ellington back to Handkerchief Heights.

She sighed and glanced out the window. The Lost Arms was still visible from where they were on the empty road, and she could see Lemony retreating into the building. Ellington wondered what he would do once he returned to his room. He had mentioned an S. Theodora Markson—the person to whom she had addressed Lemony’s package—and he’d said that she was his associate, but was she more of a guardian? Would she punish him?

Ellington stole a glance at the person next to her, Stew Mitchum, who hadn’t said a word since she and Lemony had entered the car. He sneered at her when he realized that she was looking at him, and she stared him down until he looked away. This boy wouldn’t get the best of her. She wouldn’t let him intimidate her at all.

When the station wagon reached Handkerchief Heights, Ellington hopped out at nodded courteously toward the officers.

“Don’t let us catch you up this late with that Snicket lad again,” Harvey Mitchum said, eyeing her suspiciously.

“Don’t let us catch you with him at all,” Mimi Mitchum added, shaking her head as she looked at Ellington.

“No, it should be fine if she’s with him during the day,” the male Mitchum countered.

“No, it really shouldn’t be,” his wife replied.

Ellington started making her way to the cottage before she could hear any more of the conversation, and she didn’t look back until she was safely inside. She peered out the window to make sure the officers had left before she went to the cot in the far corner and sat down on it.

Lemony had promised her that he would help her find her father. Ellington trusted that he would do this for her, regardless of what she had done to him. She bit her lip and glanced out the window, trying to see the Clusterous Forest in the dark. He would forgive what she had done.

No. That wasn’t the problem. Ellington didn’t need to be forgiven by anyone. She had told Lemony that she would do anything and everything to get her father back, and she hadn’t been lying. She was prepared to use strangers—even strangers who trusted her and were kind to her—to their full ability, if they knew anything about how to rescue her father from Hangfire’s clutches.

But still. Lemony had been kind to her, and they had clicked, Ellington could feel it. He had trusted her, just a little bit, when she had helped him down from the tree, and she found that reassuring. In these past six months, Ellington had spoken to hardly anyone, much less anyone her own age, so Lemony’s appearance in her life—and that tree—was almost like a blessing.

She shook her head and stood up, throwing clothes and papers into the striped suitcase that lay next to the cot. Ellington would have to be gone before the next morning. She knew that Lemony would be back, after having discovered what she had done, the switching of the Bombinating Beast and a simple package of coffee. She would pick up the statue at Black Cat Coffee the following day, and find a way to contact Hangfire. Ellington hadn’t even bothered to wonder what the man wanted with it. If it was guaranteed to return her father to her, she would do it.

Her eyes roamed over the windowsill and stopped at the pair of dented binoculars through which she had first spotted Lemony. Music was still playing from her record player; hearing it reminded her of the quirk of his eyebrows when he first heard it. Ellington smiled softly, glancing at the cup on the small table in the other corner of the room, still full to the brim with stale coffee. Lemony had thanked her for it, even though he hadn’t had even a sip of it. He was kind, that boy, and Ellington would be sad to leave him.

He wasn’t her friend though. In different circumstances, they might have been, but not here. Not now. Ellington continued cleaning up, humming along with her music until, at last, she packed away the record player and quietly left Handkerchief Heights.

She hoped, at the same time, to never see Lemony again, and to never leave his side.


End file.
